But mostly I like it because it is has those outsized, Tonka-toy yellow rugged good looks.

MacArtney’s wet mate connector shortens the time needed for connection and makes it possible to operate in waters with limited time windows. This is particularly important for renewable energy devices where changing tides or wave action are often associated with marine renewable deployments. The MacArtney 11kV wet mate connector provides safe and reliable connection to the power grid and addresses a number of fundamental challenges in building and maintaining marine renewable installations. Development of the connector was funded by ETI and testing witnessed by DnV (Det Norske Veritas).

http://boingboing.net/2014/12/15/giant-underwater-plug.html/feed0Utility companies go to war against solarhttp://boingboing.net/2013/12/27/utility-companies-go-to-war-ag.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/12/27/utility-companies-go-to-war-ag.html#commentsFri, 27 Dec 2013 17:00:17 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=276620
Utility companies across America are fighting solar, imposing high fees on homeowners who install their own solar panels to feed back into the grid.]]>
Utility companies across America are fighting solar, imposing high fees on homeowners who install their own solar panels to feed back into the grid. This one was predictable from a long, long way out -- energy companies being that special horror-burrito made from a core of hot, chewy greed wrapped in a fluffy blanket of regulatory protection, fixed in their belief that they have the right to profit from all power used, whether or not their supply it.

Bruce Sterling once proposed that Americans should be encouraged to drive much larger trucks, big enough to house monster fuel-cells that are kept supplied with hydrogen by decentralized windmill and solar installations -- when they are receiving more power than is immediately needed, they use the surplus to electrolyze water and store the hydrogen in any handy nearby monster-trucks' cells. When the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining, you just plug your house into your enormous American-Dream-mobile -- no need for a two-way grid.

This solution wasn't just great because it aligned the core American value of driving really large cars with environmental protection, but also because it was less vulnerable to sabotage from hydrocarbon-addicted energy companies.

HECO, despite criticism from Hawaii’s solar industry, denies the moratorium is anything more than an honest effort to address the technical challenges of integrating the solar flooding onto its grid.

The slowdown comes in a state where 9 percent of the utility’s residential customers on Oahu are already generating most of their power from the sun and where connections have doubled yearly since 2008.

In California, where solar already powers the equivalent of 626,000 homes, utilities continue to aggressively push for grid fees that would add about $120 a year to rooftop users’ bills and, solar advocates say, slow down solar adoptions.

Similar skirmishes have broken out in as many as a dozen of the 43 states that have adopted net-metering policies as part of their push to promote renewable energy. In Colorado, Xcel Energy Inc. has proposed cutting the payments it makes for excess power generated by customers by about half, because it says higher payouts result in an unfair subsidy to solar users.

http://boingboing.net/2013/12/27/utility-companies-go-to-war-ag.html/feed0Graphene supercapacitors could make batteries obsoletehttp://boingboing.net/2013/02/21/graphene-supercapacitors-could.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/02/21/graphene-supercapacitors-could.html#commentsThu, 21 Feb 2013 17:00:27 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=214495A battery can hold a lot of energy, but it takes a long time to charge it. A capacitor can be charged very quickly, but doesn't hold a comparable amount of energy.]]>

A battery can hold a lot of energy, but it takes a long time to charge it. A capacitor can be charged very quickly, but doesn't hold a comparable amount of energy.

A graphene supercharger is the best of both: it takes just seconds to charge, yet stores a lot of energy. Imagine being able to charge your spent laptop or phone battery in 30 seconds, and your electric car in a few minutes. Also, unlike batteries, Graphene supercapacitors are non-toxic.

The Nobel Prize was awarded to the inventors of Graphene in 2010. Wikipedia defines Graphene as a "substance composed of pure carbon, with atoms arranged in a regular hexagonal pattern similar to graphite, but in a one-atom thick sheet. It is very light, with a 1-square-meter sheet weighing only 0.77 milligrams."

]]>http://boingboing.net/2013/02/21/graphene-supercapacitors-could.html/feed64Can Sandy victims sue power companies for extended outages?http://boingboing.net/2012/11/09/can-sandy-victims-sue-power-co.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/11/09/can-sandy-victims-sue-power-co.html#commentsFri, 09 Nov 2012 23:18:35 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=193217Alison Frankel at Reuters.]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/11/09/can-sandy-victims-sue-power-co.html/feed6Japan: record high radiation levels found in Fukushima fish, more than a year after nuclear accidenthttp://boingboing.net/2012/08/22/japan-record-high-radiation-l.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/08/22/japan-record-high-radiation-l.html#commentsWed, 22 Aug 2012 16:29:51 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=177591

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in Japan said Tuesday its monitoring efforts have recorded record high radiation levels in local seafood: 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in fish sampled within a 20-kilometer range of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

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Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) in Japan said Tuesday its monitoring efforts have recorded record high radiation levels in local seafood: 25,800 becquerels per kilogram of radioactive cesium in fish sampled within a 20-kilometer range of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The photo shows fish caught Aug. 1, 2012 within 20 kilometers of the crippled nuclear power plant. The findings indicate that radioactive contamination remains at unsafe levels in the area's food supply more than a year after the nuclear crisis.

The level of cesium found in greenling is 258 times that deemed safe for consumption by the Japanese government, suggesting that radioactive contamination remains serious more than a year after the nuclear crisis.

Fishing in the sea off Fukushima Prefecture is voluntarily restricted except for trial fishing of certain octopuses.

http://boingboing.net/2012/08/22/japan-record-high-radiation-l.html/feed22Must-listen radio: "Nuclear Power After Fukushima," documentary from BURN: An Energy Journalhttp://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/must-listen-radio-nuclear-p.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/must-listen-radio-nuclear-p.html#commentsFri, 09 Mar 2012 20:47:01 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=148321
Veteran radio journalist and master storyteller Alex Chadwick (who's also a personal friend—he's taught me so much about journalism over the years) hosts a must-listen radio documentary premiering this weekend on public radio stations throughout the US.]]>

Veteran radio journalist and master storyteller Alex Chadwick (who's also a personal friend—he's taught me so much about journalism over the years) hosts a must-listen radio documentary premiering this weekend on public radio stations throughout the US.

BURN: An Energy Journal is a four-hour, four-part broadcast and digital documentary series exploring "the most pressing energy issues of our times."

Part One of the series, titled "Particles: Nuclear Power After Fukushima," coincides with March 11, the first anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan. I've listened in entirety, and followed along as the BURN team researched and produced over the past few months, and I can tell you this is truly powerful work. The show also includes PBS Newshour reporter Miles O'Brien, reporting from inside the Fukushima exclusion zone on his recent trip there.

Included in the riveting premiere episode is an exclusive, first-time-ever interview with an American who was on-site at the Daiichi nuclear plant when the earthquake and tsunami struck. Carl Pillitteri, a maintenance supervisor and one of 40 Americans in Fukushima on that fateful day, describes his terrifying ordeal as he desperately attempted to lead his men to safety through the enormous, shuddering turbine buildings in total darkness.

For BURN: An Energy Journal, Chadwick, a beloved public radio correspondent with 30 years of broadcast experience whose storytelling abilities and integrity have been compared to Charles Kuralt's, finds intimate, human-scale stories to explain and explore the very serious energy challenges that face communities across this country and around the world. He interviews an intriguing array of scientists and engineers, policy makers and citizen activists, research visionaries and maverick inventors, concerned parents and committed young people. These personal stories illuminate how and why we face an energy crisis, the dilemma of the continuing demand for energy, the realities and consequences of a mostly carbon-based industry and infrastructure, and some possible alternatives to what looks increasingly to be an ever-more-challenging energy and climate future in the coming decades.

(...) In Part One, "Particles: Nuclear Power After Fukushima," which is airing on the first anniversary of the disaster this coming Sunday, March 11, Chadwick examines the future of nuclear power after the disaster and asks the essential question: "What have we learned from Japan . . . and now what?" In addition to the Carl Pillitteri story and others, the host presents recordings of telephone and other conversations from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Emergency Operations Center in the early days of the disaster, released at the request of BURN. Chadwick also profiles Greg Hardy, a Los Angeles-based engineer who has spent much of his career examining the vulnerability of nuclear plants to earthquakes. Hardy says he's comfortable living between two nuclear facilities along California's coast, even after Fukushima. But Hardy's wife is skeptical. The show travels to Japan, where PBS Newshour reporter Miles O'Brien reports from inside the exclusion zone. The series also visits Germany, where the government plans to shut down its nuclear reactors by 2022.

BURN: An Energy Journal's three other one-hour specials include:

Hunting for Oil | Risks and Rewards - An Earth Day special that coincides with the two-year anniversary of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst in U.S. History. What became of all that oil? And what's the future of offshore drilling? What are our options?

An Energized Presidency - The culminating hour of BURN will be an Election Special for broadcast in October, 2012. Should we have a comprehensive national energy policy rather than a patchwork of laws and regulations? BURN will explore our energy policies and how they are being defined by the political parties and 2012 presidential candidates.

BURN: An Energy Journal is produced by SoundVision Productions in partnership with APM's Marketplace and The Story, PBS NewsHour, and with a grant from the National Science Foundation. The BURN radio specials are distributed by American Public Media. Part one of the series airs on 250 stations throughout the US.

Airing tonight on PBS Frontline (check your local listings, or watch it online!), a documentary film that provides the definitive inside account of what really happened, moment to moment, during the Fukushima disaster.

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Airing tonight on PBS Frontline (check your local listings, or watch it online!), a documentary film that provides the definitive inside account of what really happened, moment to moment, during the Fukushima disaster. "Inside Japan's Nuclear Meltdown" features exclusive interviews for the first time with Japan's prime minster and the top executives at TEPCO.

Tomorrow, Frontline is hosting a chat with the film's producer/director, Dan Edge, and Boing Boing science editor Maggie Koerth-Baker will be participating.